Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves (36 page)

That explained the condition of the security officer. "There were assassins aboard?"

"Two squat, toadlike men. They failed, but their backup almost didn't. The missile struck just as we were lifting off. Stabilizing the aircraft's flight until it could be landed was most difficult. Had I not—well, let's just say I was very lucky. However, I am left in an uncomfortable situation. I cannot trust my corporate security, and I have no time to weed out the traitors. Therefore, if I am to be spared any fur-

I her
troublesome interruptions, I must look elsewhere. I have chosen to turn to you, Mr. Benton. The opposition made manifest tonight demonstrates the physical danger of my l raveling without escort. I recall that your resume includes bodyguard work. In fact, your record is excellent in that regard, is it not?"

"I like to think so."

"I will require, I think, two teams. One as escort and a second to eliminate any hostile shadows."

"Expensive."

"Name your price."

Benton quoted him triple the usual fee. "Plus expenses, of course."

Van Dieman didn't even blink as he rattled off an autho-i ization code. "Arrange the transfer of funds, and I will confirm it. How soon can you assemble the teams?"

"I'll put the call out as soon as we confirm the contract."

"Good."

Benton quoted him the boilerplate details. Van Dieman didn't even bother to contest most of the clauses that favored Benton and his agents. Clearly, the man was worried. And l hat made Benton worry.

"I'll be able to do my work better if I know who I'm supposed to protect you from," he said.

"If I knew the source of the threat I would be commissioning you for quite a different sort of work." Van Dieman turned his gaze back to the burning plane. "You will arrange my travel personally. I prefer to resume my journey tonight, hut stealth has apparently become paramount, and completion of the journey is more important than timeliness. Within limits, of course."

"The police won't want you to leave."

"Their desires do not concern me. Make the arrangements."

"Skipping on an investigation will add to the expenses."

"Do it. Do whatever you need to do, and remember that I will not countenance a repeat of tonight's incident."

Benton had seen how Van Dieman dealt with imperfect security. "There is something I still need to know. Where are we going?"

"Antarctica, Mr. Benton. Just get me there, and I will take care of the rest."

Benton proved efficient. His immediate solution involved bribing their way aboard one of the few aircraft leaving the im port, a verrie flight to Kennedy Airport. The police would not object to Van Dieman's departure, because they would never learn of it. Once at Kennedy, the transportation options multiplied a hundredfold, a strategic advantage that Benton ••aid was important. Van Dieman approved of the plan.

They boarded the verrie moments before its scheduled liftoff and were seated in the first row of the cabin. Another of Benton's arrangements: the better to be off the craft i|iiickly when they reached Kennedy. Van Dieman settled in. The craft didn't offer the comfort or amenities that he was used to, but the flight would be short enough. He could tolerate traveling among the less advantaged.

Not a hundred feet off the ground, the harbinger surged against him, tightening its coils painfully. He yelped in sur-piise and pain. The harbinger began to howl like a child iippcd from its mother, drowning out Van Dieman's questions. Its thoughts were chaos, full of loss and confusion and dread. His own thoughts dissolved into the harbinger's, were tossed free. He floated, detached from his mortality. He saw his body convulse.

Benton reacted quickly, attempting to restrain Van Die-man's thrashing limbs with sheer physical force. He shouted lor the flight attendant, who rushed to their side. Her strength was nothing compared to Benton's; she did little to control

Van Dieman's convulsions. For his part, Van Dieman fought to calm the harbinger. The creature fought against him, refusing to listen to him. His body mimicked the flailing of the harbinger's shadowy form.

The pain of spasmed muscles edged into Van Dieman's disembodied consciousness. He hated pain. He watched helplessly as his head slammed again and again into the seat back. This was not right. The harbinger's panic was pointless; the indignities it was imposing on him were unacceptable. More than he hated pain, he hated the offense to his dignity. He used his hate to beat against the harbinger, to force it back under his control.

With the help of the copilot, Benton and the flight attendant began to control the thrashing of Van Dieman's body. With the increasing physical restraint, Van Dieman found it easier to force his will on the harbinger. Regaining access to its inchoate mind, he forced calm upon it, beating the rebellious beast down into submission. With it cowed, he was able to return to conscious control of his body.

"You may take your hands from me now," he said. "I am all right."

"Are you sure, sir," the attendant said. "I think we ought to—"

"I said I'm all right! Leave me alone!"

Rocked back by the power he put into the command, she obeyed him. Van Dieman slumped in his seat, glaring at the copilot, who returned to the cockpit without another word.

Van Dieman felt the eyes of the passengers upon him. He had made a spectacle of himself—or rather the harbinger had done it for him.

Foolish creature, he admonished it silently.

Unnatural,
it responded. It still jittered at the edge of panic.
The earth is too far. Return. Must return at once.

We will return to the ground soon enough.

Too far.

The harbinger moaned and complained for the entire flight, but under his strong control, there was no repeat of the strange hysteria that had gripped the creature. It shifted and twitched, settling down only when he reassured it. But its periods of calm grew shorter and shorter. Van Dieman's patience had worn thin enough to break by the time the pilot announced their descent into Kennedy.

Not much longer now, he told it as he might speak to a child.

Too long. Too long.

There will be longer times.

No!

Yes. This method of travel is necessary to reach the place in a timely way.

He could feel it assessing the truth of his statement. He sensed its distress.

What must be,
it said. Coiling tightly around him, the harbinger shifted. Its consciousness dimmed below the point at which he could communicate with it. The harbinger had withdrawn that way before, and its retreat offered Van Die-man no cause for worry. He knew that the harbinger had come back to him when he felt its surge of joy as the verrie's wheels touched the earth.

As Benton had arranged with the verrie's pilot, the craft put down at the edge of its owners' parking area, as far as possible from prying eyes. But Van Dieman's episode with the harbinger had complicated their arrival: an ambulance and a team of paramedics stood by with the ground crew. Per prior agreement, Benton departed through the copilot's hatch on the side of the verrie away from the terminal while the pilot fussed with the landing, centering local attention on the craft. Through a window, Van Dieman watched him sprint unmolested toward the baggage gate. Once inside, he would begin making further arrangements.

Van Dieman had been supposed to exit with the other passengers, anonymous among them. There was no record of his leaving Boston; there would have been no record of his arriving in New York. To the authorities back in Boston, Van I )ieman might as well have simply disappeared. In truth, the media were already reporting him missing in what they were calling the "NSC Aircraft Bombing." Metadynamics and Network Securities Corporation flacks were, of Course, denying that he had been on the doomed flight. Van Dieman had been wise in priming them to cover his trip. An incident such as the one at Logan might well have sparked stock runs or even a takeover attempt—there would certainly have been an internal power struggle—and he was not ready to surrender any of his hard-won gains. Money and mundane power would still matter in the new world that was coming.

Unfortunately the plan had developed a hitch: the people aboard the verrie. Thanks to the harbinger's fit, they would remember him. All that had been gained by his secretive departure from Boston would be lost unless he acted. He needed to silence these witnesses—quickly, effectively, and in such a way as to hide his hand in it. One of the passengers coughed, suggesting an idea.

Pneumococcus bacteria lie dormant in the lungs of almost every person on earth. They do not threaten a healthy person. However, if activated and energized with arcane force, the disease could blossom; and if accelerated by that same force, the disease could strike swiftly and fatally, congesting the lungs and suffocating the victim.

A waste of fodder,
the harbinger complained.

There will be more. For now I think it best that what is done here not look like your usual feeding, he told it. Losing his temper with the captain of NSC security in Boston and allowing the harbinger to ingest the man's essence had been a mistake.

The harbinger growled incoherent complaint, but lent its strength to his plan. In less than a minute surprised passengers and aircraft crew died choking on their own fluids. But to gain the full advantage of what he had done, he needed to be well away before it was discovered; and to do that, he still had to deal with those waiting on the tarmac. It was a small matter to make himself appear to be the verrie's pilot. Not an exact likeness, of course, just a uniform and insignia— enough for the ground crew to respond to. He opened the passenger hatch and extended the stairs. The , paramedics were waiting at the bottom when he reached it. They needed no urging to board.

"You!" Van Dieman shouted to the milling ground crew. "Come on! They'll need your help too."

The signs of authority affected them strongly. It didn't hurt that Van Dieman added a compulsive push to their reactions. The ground crew followed the paramedics onto the verrie. Van Dieman did not need to climb back up; his hand on the railing was sufficient to connect him to the shell containing the magic he shaped.

He dealt with the new arrivals as he had with the crew and passengers.

Let the authorities here wonder at the plague ship that had arrived on their doorstep. The quarantine would delay inquiries long enough for Van Dieman's needs.

Benton was making the arrangements for the next leg of Ihe journey, summoning the requisite aid and taking the precautions he deemed necessary. Caution was indeed advisable now that this new, unknown opposition force had entered the picture. Van Dieman decided to arrange some precautions of his own. The public comps in the main terminal allowed him to make the necessary calls with sufficient discretion.

Finishing his arrangements, he realized that he was hungry, as he often was after working magic. The harbinger hungered as well; he could feel the gnawing intensity of its want. He'd done what most immediately needed to be done, and there was time before he was to meet Benton.

"We'll find you something soon," he told the harbinger.

Even an airport as large and busy as Kennedy had dark and quiet corners.

A system as large and busy as Mitsutomo's main database offered many places to hide bits of information. The decker Pamela employed knew most of the dark corners, those places where the furtive could stash things they didn't want others to see. Normally Pamela left the ferret Work to her decker, but occasionally she did her own snooping. She liked to keep up on what was being hidden away, especially when it affected her place in the organization.

One of her special interests of late was seeing just what, among the steady flow of information into the Thaumatech-nics data store from former Charybdis Project sources, was being diverted or dumped by the esteemed Mr. Hagen. Take, for instance, the latest file deleted by Hagen: an SIU sign-off report on an incident.

Normally the system picked up any reports where the Special Investigations Unit retained interest in a case. This time a flag calling for any unusual data on a related item in old Charybdis files had brought in one that SIU had passed on. The old file was on one Marianne Reddy, a Mitsutomo dependent. Sorli had put a watch on her as a part of his program of surveillance on probable agents of the otherworld. After a museum fire of suspicious origin in which Reddy's son had been killed, she had been sequestered under surveillance. Nothing had turned up in connection with her, but her old apartment had been the site of several "visitation" events, all verified by Gower. Nothing new had shown up for over a year; the case had been closed down, surveillance terminated, although apparently someone had missed shutting down Sorli's flag. This new report, involving a prankster and a police impersonator, sounded like a strange harassment crime, but it had nothing otherworldly except the Halloween costume worn by the prankster. SIU had—quite reasonably, it seemed—signed off on it. So why had Hagen bothered to delete it?

A matter for another day.

Today, she wanted answers from Hagen on his sudden reawakening of interest in the
Wisteria
killer. She kept her face neutral as he entered her office and took his place in the chair. He knew about the sensors in the chair and showed no hesitation in sitting.